Election Fever

[Diddy]

Thank you for your redraft ... the other perspective is that it was the unions that made UK PLC uncompetitive ... but I have not researched the issue. I did watch an interesting film on YouTube the other day about Rolls Royce's preparations for building Merlin and later Griffon engines during WW II. It was refreshing to see the high level of cooperation between white and blue collar workers that delivered incredible productivity from initially 'un' or 'semi' skilled labour including a very significant intake of women. Highest quality training and cooperation appear to have been the hallmarks of success! Though I imagine the lack of a true market economy and all out blank check to achieve a high quality high performance product probably helped!

How was the Falklands conflict, war has to be declared and it was not, contrived? Governments preceding hers, and indeed her own, if I understand correctly had led the Argentines to believe, by their laissez faire approach to the Islands' sovereignty, that the UK was not interested. It suited Galtieri to unite Argentina around retaking islands that were then and still are a British protectorate. How would you respond if France invaded the Channel Islands?

See I may be biased....But I think the fact that she was warned many months before that we needed a navy presence down there...which she chose to ignore (Feeling that the navy chief was trying to curb proposed cuts to the navy around that time....). It was because of her ignoring this information that it ended up becoming an invasion....it is generally accepted that agrentina would have never tried anything is the uk navy had been down there.
When it happened she was miles behind in the poles. She and her advisers calculated that an "easy" win down there would be popular with the country....and they were right !!

 

[Diddy]

So endless stikes in car factories in the UK, was a world economic factor?
So endless Civil Servants strikes, ditto above
So endless garbage collection stikes, ditto above?

I could go on....

I think I did say the unions were running things and did bugger things up. Nobody can really dispute that. BTW the Labour chancellor Denis Healy stated correctly that the UK needed to balance its books...he was booed off stage at the tuc...but he still went ahead and implemented fixed budgets for government departments...which was needed and is basically the model we use today.....the unions had got too powerful no doubt. They needed modernising and maybe a bit of regulating.....but imho we have went too far and most workers pay the price today for the destruction of the unions.

 

[GB.Kayak]

I am deeply embarrassed by the fact that I have only voted once in my life ... at the last election. To have voted at most other times it would have amounted to no more than a protest vote! Sadly the party for whom I voted, and helped to return their member for Parliament, in government made me redundant! How is that for irony!

 

[andyb]

So endless stikes in car factories in the UK, was a world economic factor?
So endless Civil Servants strikes, ditto above
So endless garbage collection stikes, ditto above?

I could go on....

There were no endless car factories strikes,
There were no endless Civil Servants strikes,
There were no endless garbage collection strikes,

Where are you getting your information from?

I think I did say the unions were running things and did bugger things up. Nobody can really dispute that. .

I'll dispute that.
Then as now it was the banks and the City running the country.

 

[plugsandsparks]

I'll dispute that.
Then as now it was the banks and the City running the country.

Well if you want to borrow money to run your business / country, there is an inevitable consequence.... don't borrow and you can do what you want.... seams fair to me

 

[Octopus]

There were no endless car factories strikes,
There were no endless Civil Servants strikes,
There were no endless garbage collection strikes,

Where are you getting your information from?




I'll dispute that.
Then as now it was the banks and the City running the country.

i was was referring to the successes of Labour in the 1970's

 

[andyb]

Well if you want to borrow money to run your business / country, there is an inevitable consequence.... don't borrow and you can do what you want.... seams fair to me

That's a view, not mine though. But I was responding to Diddy's claim that the unions were running the country.

I wasn't referring specifically to borrowing, Healey found that out when he went to the IMF cap in hand.
The banks were the prime cause of the very high inflation in the early seventies due to the Heath goverments relaxing of the credit control rules.

 

[andyb]

i was was referring to the successes of Labour in the 1970's

You start then.

 

[Adam W]

Well they successfully managed to get into government in the first place (just).

 

[Octopus]

You start then.

i refer you you back to post #30

 

[andyb]

i refer you you back to post #30

I refer you back to post #34

 

[Octopus]

I refer you back to post #34

A couple of examples

Winter of Discontent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

 

[BES]

Could be a Tory/ Sinn Fien with Gerry Adams as deupty PM

 

[andyb]

A couple of examples

Winter of Discontent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Three-Day Week - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The three day week was under the Heath government 1970-1974, doesn't really back your point.

The 'winter of discontent' was a series of strikes through the winter of 78-79. The unions after 4 years of pay restraint imposed by the Labour government opposed the 5% on the table. The Labour government had introduced public spending cuts to (successfully) control inflation. It's a common myth that Labour did not stand up to the unions, if this was true there would of been no 'winter of discontent'

It's interesting that you use a series of strikes to define a government when Labour are in power, do you do the same when the Tories are at the helm, there was a lot of industrial unrest through the 80s as you know. Is that a Tory success.

Finally the perception 'winter of discontent' was mainly a right wing media construct.
Derek Jameson the editor of The Daily Express said in 1979

‘We pulled every dirty trick in the book. We made it look like it was general, universal and eternal, whereas it was in reality scattered, here and there, and no great problem.’

 

[Diddy]

The three day week was under the Heath government 1970-1974, doesn't really back your point.

The 'winter of discontent' was a series of strikes through the winter of 78-79. The unions after 4 years of pay restraint imposed by the Labour government opposed the 5% on the table. The Labour government had introduced public spending cuts to (successfully) control inflation. It's a common myth that Labour did not stand up to the unions, if this was true there would of been no 'winter of discontent'

It's interesting that you use a series of strikes to define a government when Labour are in power, do you do the same when the Tories are at the helm, there was a lot of industrial unrest through the 80s as you know. Is that a Tory success.

Finally the perception 'winter of discontent' was mainly a right wing media construct.
Derek Jameson the editor of The Daily Express said in 1979

‘We pulled every dirty trick in the book. We made it look like it was general, universal and eternal, whereas it was in reality scattered, here and there, and no great problem.’

I actually broadly agree with this.
When I said the unions were running the country was me basically referring to them going on strike when the country needed them to accept austerity. The fact that they did not back down and went on strike coupled with attacks from the right wing meant that the government of the day was defeated on the back of the unrest.
Ironically this stance by the unions at the time directly led to their own demise and the election of the Thatcher government along with the policies which we all know and love today haha.

As I said in this thread I blame Tory policies from 1979> for 50%+ of all the problems we face as a country today. I do not blame the Labour party of the 70's....or 80's for that matter. I certainly do not blame the unions in the 80's.....because that was not about pay rises it was fighting for their and others very lively hood.....something far too many people thought was just the "miners problem". All came home to roost when the "miners" were not able to buy their goods and services and they all went to the wall too.
People are better off in work. Government is better off if people are in work. The fact that the in the 80's the government took the decision that this was not necessarily correct and put millions onto the scrap heap.....in some cases that "scrap heap" still exists with the children of the 80's victims...and on it goes.
It is easy to say that people should "get on their bike" and find work and move to where the work is.....Again as we are finding out today not everyone can just up sticks and move down to London and the south.......stuff like that puts a tiny bit of pressure on housing/schools/nhs ect ect ect........